Georgia mesothelioma attorney and work injury lawyer was recently featured in the Fulton County Daily Report, Atlanta’s daily legal newspaper, for the result achieved in the Bradley vs. Procter & Gamble and Fru-Con Constructionmatter. On January 1, 2011, Michael Bradley was injured while working on a pressurized system at the P&G facility in Augusta, Georgia. Jonah Flynn brought claims against the designers of the system upon which Mr. Bradley was working, as well as claims against the Procter & Gamble Company, the parent organization to Mr. Bradley’s employer, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Company. After lengthy discovery, the Mr. Bradley’s claims were favorably resolved.

The Flynn Law Firm is pleased to report that it has resolved an industrial accident lawsuit brought by a Procter & Gamble employee against the Procter & Gamble Company and others responsible for designing and installing an industrial system in Augusta, Georgia.

On January 1, 2010, Plaintiff Michael Bradley was performing maintenance on a paste agglomeration (PAG) supply line when, without warning, a caustic solution used in the manufacture of household detergents struck him in the face, causing severe injury. The Defendants had a role in the design, construction, installation or maintenance of the system upon which Mr. Bradley was working at the time of his incident or, alternatively, manufactured products which were a part of that system. Procter & Gamble Company was the parent company of Plaintiff’s employer, Procter and Gamble Manufacturing Company, and was added as a separate party to the case.

The PAG system upon which Mr. Bradley was working at the time of his injury is a complicated piping system used to make paste agglomerate, an ingredient in powdered laundry detergents such as Tide and Gain. In 2004, P&G initiated “Project Flood to change the PAG system so that the paste agglomerate it created could be made using new ingredients and different processes. In the area where Michael Bradley was injured, the piping was reconfigured to allow for splitting of paste between one of two mixers. In so doing, two manual valves were moved from the fourth floor of the building to the ceiling of the third floor. Because the valves were in the ceiling of the third floor, over twenty feet from the ground, the valves were automated. Michael Bradley was injured when one of the valves failed to open [Read more…]

American Marazzi Tile has been cited by the OSHA for violation of 25 workplace health and safety rules. The Sunnyvale, Texas based tile manufacturer must now pay $318,000 in fines or contest the charges before an OHSA review board.

The company was cited for willful violations which could have produced serious work injuries or workplace death, inclding citations for failure to provide the required machine guards for exposed belts, chains, pulleys and sprockets. Additionally they neglected to establish a lockout/tag-out system for energy sources to protect their employees from the unexpected start-up of machines. Perhaps the most powerful example of American Marazzi’s indifference to employee safety and health is their absence of a hearing conservation program for workers exposed to prolonged work-related noise of more than 85 decibels. OHSA noted the company with having 21 other serious violations.

After an OSHA Whistleblower complaint filed by an employee at Houston’s Piping Technology and Products Inc. spurred an OHSA investigation, the company now faces over $1,000,000 in penalties resulting from 13 willful and 17 serious violations. The concerned worker approached the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration earlier this year with several claims of workplace hazards including unguarded presses and a lack of brakes on overhead cranes. Along with substantiating the worker’s claims, investigators found the company to be exposing its workers to the risk of severe work injury as well as amputation from its dangerous machinery.

Piping Technology’s willful violations include the failure to lock out all sources of hazardous energy to equipment prior to servicing or maintenance and the failure to guard seven band saws. A willful violation is defined as one committed with intentional knowing or voluntary disregard for the law’s requirements, or with plain indifference to employee safety and health. Each of the 13 willful violations holds a penalty of $70,000 each. The company, who has been issued citations in years past, has now been placed in OHSA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program.

Trench collapses are a common source of Georgia workers compensation claims and workplace injury claims. Often, trenches are dug quickly, with little or no structural design required to ensure those digging are actually safe. In January, Michael Wilson, of Chester County, PA, was killed when a trench he was digging collapsed.

Recently, OSHA fined Wilson’s employer, J.D. Eckman, Inc., for failing to have trained supervisors on hand to adequately supervise the digging operation. Additionally, the two men working on the trench were not trained on the use of pneumatic jack hammers, and were using the equipment in a way which led to the collapse.[Read more…]

One such work accident recently occurred in Knoxville, Tennessee, when Solin Estrada Jiminez was killed when a chunk of concrete fell off a support beam of the Henley Street Bridge. Jiminez was an undocumented worker for Britton Bridge, LLC.[Read more…]

An unidentified electrical lineman was killed in Mifflin, Wisconsin last week after apparently coming into contact with energized power lines. The 39-year old lineman was working for a private utility contractor in the area when he suffered a life-ending work injury.

Electrical lineman are often exposed to dangerous working conditions, and, as a result, should consult the best Georgia workers compensation attorney when they suffer an on the job injury. A good workers compensation lawyer can help the injured lineman with his workers compensation case, and can also identify potential third-parties who may be responsible for the lineman’s injuries.
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Jon Martinez and Jason Steele, both of whom worked for United Fire Protection in St. Petersburg, Florida, were recently killed in an industrial accident while working for United Fire Protection at a former Georgia Pacific Plant in Lake Placid, Florida. The workers were fixing a pump inside a concrete block building adjacent to a water tank, when the tank (or the pump) exploded. When the tank exploded, it caused a “rush” of water, which caused the building to collapse. OSHA and local law enforcement are investigating the work accident.

Atlanta workers’ compensation lawyers are kept busy by claims filed by employees hurt on the job in a variety of scenarios. Often, the workers comp claim is simple: employee vs. employer in an administrative action pending before the Georgia State Board of Workers Compensation.

However, sometimes, workers with many different employers are working at a facility, many of whom are contractors, at the time of injury. In that situation, a Georgia workers compensation claim can be filed against the injured worker’s employer, and a third-party work injury lawsuit or construction accident lawsuit may be filed against other contractors or the premises owner for creating dangerous working conditions. Contractors who come on the property are typically in harms way—they have no training or instruction on what’s happening on the jobsite, are provided little or no information about safety issues, and, sometimes, are brought onto a job because the tasks are too dangerous for the premises owner’s own workers.[Read more…]

February 7 marks the three year anniversary of the Imperial Sugar Refinery explosion, which caused 8 deaths and numerous Georgia work injury claims to be filed. The Flynn Law Firm represents 6 workers injured in the blast. The explosion was caused by excess sugar dust in a conveyor running under the silos at the refinery. Secondary explosions were then caused by the huge amount of sugar all over the facility. After the explosion, OSHA implemented standards on combustible dust, and specifically mandate that 1/32″ of sugar may be allowed to accumulate on surface areas. Work injury lawyers represented several claimants who were injured in the explosion.[Read more…]

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Flynn Firm

We serve the following localities: DeKalb County including Avondale Estates, Chamblee, Clarkston, Decatur, Doraville, Dunwoody, Stone Mountain, and Tucker; Forsyth County including Cumming; Fulton County including Alpharetta, Atlanta, Roswell, and Sandy Springs; Glynn County including Brunswick, St. Simons Island, and Sea Island; and Gwinnett County including Auburn, Berkeley Lake, Braselton, Buford, Dacula, and Duluth.